You have to hand it to Apple. I mean, when they get something right, and the market responds with millions of units sold, they deserve all the money and accolades that come along with it.
I am now the proud owner of a brand, spanking new iPod. I guess my wife got tired of me staring at them lustfully in Best Buy and decided it was time to just buy one already.
My one problem right now is that I have been purchasing music in Windows Media format from PureTracks. And the only way to get that into my iPod is to burn it to CD, and then rip the CD to MP3. (Or buy it again from iTunes.)
I own a license to the music, but it's damn difficult to get it into iPod...
I am actually starting on a Visual Studio 2005 project at work. The thing is barely in Beta 2, but enough people here are excited about the new features in the .NET Framework that we've been told to use that as the platform for our next project.
(Of course, it will have a SQL Server 2005 back end.)
I. Can't. Wait.
I read an interesting article that speculated that, at some point, Apple will stop making Macs and just focus on iPods and iTunes (iPictures, iMovies, etc.).
That will be quite the day. Not because I have some affinity for the machines (or have ever even used one), but because it is the kind of thing you could not have predicted even 2 years ago.
If it works, it will be a brilliant move. Almost everyone these days has a Home PC. The need to buy a new computer every few years will soon be over, as computers today are more powerful than the tasks they are being asked to perform (Word, Excel, Email, Web Browsing). The only need for power on the PC is games, but that market might soon move away from the PC.
So where is the growth in technology? Portable PCs. We have seen the rise and fall of the PDA - clearly noone wants to be able to create Excel spreadsheets on the bus. But have you seen the latest things from iPod and Playstation Portable (PSP)? The PSP, for instance, has games, movies, music, and wireless networking all bundled into one.
But you're not going to watch movies with your family on a PSP. So I think the home entertainment console is undergoing a lot of technological improvement to become the central technology device in the home. The XBox might be the gaming station, DVD player, email reader, web surfer, and more... all wrapped into one.
So where does that leave the PC? Well, I think people still need one. But why buy a new one except when the old one breaks? Assuming gaming moves to the Home Entertainment Console, what new killer app will there be to spur an upgrade in PC power? None can be seen at the present time.
Of course, this could all collapse and Apple's move away from the PC could be suicide. Who knows?
One of the top stories these days (aside from storms and terrorism) is the plight of some U.S. journalists who might be going to jail to protect their sources. The Supreme Court refused to intervene, which reaffirms the notion that there is no magic shield that journalists can hide behind when they are asked to testify in court.
The sequence of events that led to this is as follows:
(1) George Bush says in the State of the Union a few years ago that Iraq attempted to buy nuclear materials from Niger, as one of the reasons to go to war
(2) Joseph Wilson writes a column that says he had previously traveled to Niger to investigate the claim, and he reported back to the U.S. government that the claim was probably false (forged documents and things). The President was repeating a claim to the American public that he knew to be false.
(3) Someone in the White House phoned several reporters to try to discredit Mr. Wilson - he only got the job because his wife, a CIA agent, recommended him for it. It's illegal to reveal the identity of an undercover agent.
Now, in 2005, a federal special prosecutor is forcing those reporters to testify in front of a grand jury to find out who the leak is. Some have refused and face a few months in jail. This has raised the question as to how much confidentialty a reporter can guarantee a source.
The Denver Post ran a column today that said, "Like most journalists, I operate by this principle: As whistle-blowers stop tweeting, corruption and incompetence in business and government fester."
I totally agree. We need a way to protect people who bring to light government corruption, lies and cover-ups. But who is the whistle-blower in this case? Joseph Wilson. Who is Judith Miller protecting in this case? White house officials who were trying to get retribution against Joseph Wilson.
Journalists should not be falling all over themselves to congratulate Judith Miller. She is not protecting the whistle-blower. Her actions will actually deter future whistle-blowers from coming forward.
Some American politicians (and protesters) have labelled the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay a concentration camp, and have drawn parallels to how Nazi Germany treated prisoners during WW2.
Those type of statements are ludicrous, laughable, and no further time needs to be spent thinking that what the Americans have set up is a concentration camp. Clearly, it's not. American's don't hate Arabs and wish to extinguish them, as the Germans felt towards the Jews.
Instead, people should be asking themselves, “What is the Guantanamo Bay prison? What is it for? Why does the U.S. need a prison 50 miles off the coast of Miami?”
The answer to this is quite clear. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5 decades ago, that any prisoner kept inside the United States has the full protection of the constitution, including the right to counsel and the right to a speedy trial amoung others (called “due process“). It also ruled that U.S. prisoners kept outside the borders of the United States are not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see the 1950 Supreme Court ruling in Johnson v. Eisentrager).
Guantanamo Bay Prison is a perfect legal no-mans-land. It is under the full control of the U.S., yet it does not belong to any country. Some terror suspects are being kept imprisoned on U.S. Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf - similarly they are in international waters (not on U.S. soil) and do not get constitutional protection.
So that, there, is really the issue. The U.S. has found a legal loophole in the constitution. A place where it can detain people, yet reject their right to a lawyer, a trial, to talk to their families, or even to acknowledge that someone is in custody. It can stretch the boundaries by treating prisoners in a way that is not legal inside United States prisons - keeping them awake for 2 or 3 days in a row, verbal and mental abuse, etc.
The U.S. is not about to close this handy loophole it has found. I don't think prisoners are being physically tortured there (not in the Abu Gharib sense), but having a prison that has no rules certainly has its benefits in other ways.
Here's a nice editorial at Canoe that sums up how I feel about the U.S. Grand Prix exactly.
Had they REALLY cared for the fans, they would have found a way. Had they REALLY cared for the fans, there would have been 20 cars on the track. Had they REALLY cared, the future of Formula One racing in America would not be in doubt.
Basically, I don't blame Ferrari for not wanting to bend the rules to allow the Michelin cars to compete. But the fact that some compromise could not be reached inflicted a mortal wound into the sport. Ferrari apparently refused to go along with some proposed changes, while the FIA vetoed the other ones.
“Just drive slower” was the only possible solution the FIA would accept. I think that letting them switch to safer tires would have been the ideal solution for everyone.
If you haven't heard what happened in yesterday's United States Grand Prix, in Forumla One Auto Racing, I can't blame you. Formula One is mostly a European sport -- American's love their Nascar.
What happened is that, out of 20 cars scheduled to race, only 6 started. And so, the lamest race in automotive history took place at the Indy track, with Ferrari easily beating out the other two much weaker teams (Jordan and Minardi) for the so-called “win“.
Why this happened is fairly clear.
- There was a couple of accidents in practice, one serious
- It turns out the tires take some of the blame for these accidents
- Michelin, tire supplier to 14 out of the 20 drivers, warns the teams that it is not 100% sure the tires are safe
- The teams then ask for an exemption to the silly “one tire“ rule so that they can change the tires on their car to a safer type. That is rejected.
- The tires are failing because drivers are driving too fast through a tight turn - the tires can't take the pressure. So the teams ask for a slight change to the course to slow down cars through that turn. In fact, they offer to give up all the “points“ for winning to the teams that run on Bridgestone. (Essentially, they offered to play a competitive game for the fans, but concede the part that matters - the points.) This idea is also rejected.
- And so, left with no compromise, the 14 drivers are ordered by their owners into the pits at the start of the race, and F1 fans (particular the American fans watching live) are cheated out of a real competition
- The only two fast cars in the race, the two Ferraris, refused to pass each other (a practice called “team orders“)
It would seem to me, a fan of F1, that Formula One governing body (FIA) has an obligation to protect the sport from embarassments such as this. To go into a race knowing that the majority of drivers will pull out, and let it happen, is the real problem here.
I think everybody involved, including Michelin, is admitting that the tires were the original problem. But there was plenty of time to fix it, and lots of ideas on how to fix it. But they couldn't agree, and so the race went ahead. The race should have been cancelled, delayed, whatever.
I see this sometimes at work. Someone makes a mistake, but then instead of everyone rallying around and fixing the problem, people proudly announce “It's not my problem, I'm not going to do anything to fix it.” There's the crime of the original shooting. And then the crime of not calling the police while a person slowly dies out on the sidewalk. Michelin admitted to it's fault. Why doesn't Formula One admit it screwed up as well.
Anyways, what's done is done. Formula One looks dead at Indy. And it might take a few years to return to the United States. In fact, this might cause a rift that causes many teams to break away from F1 and form their own league. Man oh man. The implications of this farce are long reaching, unless the parties involved can kiss and make up quickly.
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